In Reply to: Venturing out to Asia from Bali posted by harryJ on Sunday, 29. May 2011 at 18:28 Bali Time:
We have flown Air Asia many times and have found them to be very good. They now have a direct flight from Bali to Phuket which we did in March, we paid $70 return including taxes but this was an opening special, got tickets Bali-Phuket return for Dec and paid $100 return. You can fly Bali to KL and from there to pretty much anywhere in Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia etc. I would check with embassies re visa requirements, when I went to Vietnam a couple of years ago had to organise visa before leaving as they did not have visa on arrival like Bali but this may have changed.
We have travelled all over Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Borneo etc) using different modes of transport, if you need any info let me know.
Just remember that if you leave Bali you will pay departure tax and then when you return you will have to pay for the VOA again and then departure tax again when leaving. So 2 lots of VOA and 2 lots of departure tax.